Protesting the pipeline: In Weymouth, the fight continues

Audrey Cooney The Patriot Ledger

Saturday

Jan 12, 2019 at 4:14 PMJan 13, 2019 at 4:53 PM

WEYMOUTH — Clutching pickets, a group of residents, activists and politicians ardently against a proposed North Weymouth natural-gas compressor station held a rally on the banks of the Fore River on Saturday afternoon.

“We want Governor Baker to know that he might be in office for four years, but we’re not going anywhere,” said Alice Arena, president of Fore River Residents Against the Compressor Station, which organized the rally. “We are not giving up. This land belongs to us. This land belongs to this community. This land does not belong to a multinational gas corporation. We’re not leaving.”

About 100 people braved the chilly weather to gather near the foot of the Fore River Bridge, many holding signs with slogans such as “No Fracking Wey” and “Save Our Bridge From Enbridge.”

The rally came one day after the state Department of Environmental Protection issued an air quality permit for the project and one week after the Metropolitan Area Planning Council released a health impact assessment that found the compressor station probably wouldn't worsen noise levels or residents' health.

Spectra Energy-Enbridge received initial approval for the project from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in January 2017. But the company still needs several state permits to build the proposed 7,700-horsepower compressor station next to the Weymouth side of the Fore River, part of a massive expansion of its pipelines from New Jersey into Canada. Compressor stations are placed along pipelines to maintain gas pressure and keep gas flowing.

Residents of Weymouth, Braintree, Quincy and Hingham have expressed concerns the station could sicken neighbors or explode.

Weymouth Mayor Robert Hedlund, Braintree Mayor Joseph Sullivan, Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch and 14 legislators from the South Shore wrote to Baker last week to express opposition to the station.

Arena said the compressor station would generate air and noise pollution and an explosion could wipe out the nearby Fore River Bridge and have devastating effects on residents from neighboring towns. But the best solution isn’t to convince Algonquin to just build the station elsewhere, she said.

“We’re not NIMBY (not in my backyard). It doesn’t belong in our neighborhoods and it doesn’t belong on this earth,” she said.

Environmental groups including 350 Massachusetts, Mothers Out Front and Massachusetts Power Forward have been involved with the fight against the compressor station and were at the rally.

Politicians from across the South Shore were there, including Hedlund, Sullivan, Koch; state Sens. Patrick O’Connor, R-Weymouth, and Walter Timilty, D-Milton; state Reps. James Murphy, D-Weymouth, Bruce Ayers, D-Quincy, and Joan Meschino, D-Hull; and city council members from Quincy and Weymouth.

O’Connor said the Department of Environmental Protection’s decision to grant the air quality permit set a dangerous precedent for towns not being able to control construction within their borders.

“I’m tremendously disappointed,” he said. “All of the factors that come into play here make no sense.”

Hedlund said an appeal is likely and he expects the town to sue the state to challenge the air permit. In a speech during the rally, he said pollution or an explosion from the compressor station would affect residents of multiple towns and cities.

“It’s frustrating to me that we have a state administration that has turned its back on these neighborhoods,” he said. “The fight continues.”

Yvonne Lamothe of Quincy, who’s been involved with Fore River Residents Against the Compressor Station for over a year, said the health impact study did nothing to assuage her concerns about potential pollution.

“There’s no need for it, and it’s really mostly about people not thinking about what is important for human life and the environment. It’s all about profit,” she said of the proposed station.

Lamothe echoed a complaint that many at the rally shared: that Baker has not listened to residents who said they worry about how the compressor station could affect them.

If she had the chance, Lamothe said, she would ask Baker and Algonquin officials, “How could you ever live with knowing you’re harming people, children, families, elderly people? Why are you doing this?”